Chapter 72 – To Each His Own
[One week later]
+135k LEE, Total: 1519k LEE
After some preparations and packing, Nuwa and the others are ready to make the trip to the warfront. Kuei is staying to function as the king with 75% of the Dai Li agents. He’s started to pick up on some “real king stuff” as he calls it.
Since he’s studious, he doesn’t mind shuffling through reports and signing off on things. So even though he might miss out on a resurgence of some of the corruption that Nuwa has squashed in the past 3 months, he’s not dumb enough to let any huge disasters occur on his watch.
Nuwa had to scrap her plans for making a large vehicle because of a lack of technology to move it without all the benders running out of chi within a day. She would use one of the airships her family obtained, but that would expose the fact that there are traitors and alert Ozai. Anyway, she requisitioned all the eelhounds that entered Ba Sing Se for the past week to move everyone over. It cost a fortune for Kuei to do so, but they’re worth it.
With 50 eelhounds, they can carry all the people going southwest to fight or assist in the war effort without wasting any extra time on the road. Eelhounds are amphibious mounts that are the fastest long-distance creatures on land and water. They’ll be able to make the trip of 800 km (~500 mi) in a single week with stops for rest and food. That’s as fast as Appa would be able to make the trip flying.
Obviously, with the large number of eelhounds, they’ll be the frequent target of bandits interested in the expensive creatures. Nothing a bit of firepower and muscle can’t solve. They can even make money on the way if the bandits carry some of their stash with them. However, most bandits in the Earth Nation these days were originally honest people. They’ve simply been forced into that life because of poverty.
Nuwa is hoping to recruit some of them to go to war and serve as fodder, if she finds their intelligence and strength to be adequate enough to be worth feeding another mouth during the journey.
The group packs their clothing, weapons, and as much food as they can carry before they go through the catacombs to Lake Laogai where the eelhounds have been gathered. There the rehabilitated women and children are waiting for them looking slightly fearfully at the eelhounds. The domesticated animals have all been separated from the ones who had tamed them recently and might have been agitated if it wasn’t for Iroh’s tea spark calming them down.
Nuwa splits the people into small groups and distributes simple treats that the eelhounds will like to each group to start a bonding process. Otherwise, she’s hoping nothing will go wrong. These eelhounds should all be quite tame since she snagged them off of merchants and nobles.
Each small group has a Dai Li agent to steer the eelhound and defend them in case of an attack.
Nuwa and Azula look at each other and back in the direction of Ba Sing Se. Nudging Azula, Nuwa asks, “Should we come back some day?”
Azula smiles and nods. “Although there were some painful memories, maybe they were necessary.”
“You get me so hot when you talk wise to me, babe..”
Laughing, Azula wraps her arms around Nuwa and jumps them onto the biggest eelhound. Since this one is the biggest, it can serve as a pack alpha that the other eelhounds will follow. This will make steering easier for the ones behind.
Team Avatar will be patrolling the skies for bandit threats and June will be riding Nyla. This past week, June has gone to the Spirit Realm daily and built up a rapport with Aiwei. They’ve agreed to pick him up on the way to the warfront. He’s currently in a town farther inland with Xai Bau doing some counterintelligence work for the Order.
They’ve just about cleared out most of the traitorous and corrupt nobles in the vicinity of Omashu. The only ones around are the good nobles who surrendered to the Fire Nation against their own will so that they don’t lose the lives of their people meaninglessly.
Omashu is currently outnumbered at the warfront and if the Fire Nation line advances further, the Earth Nation soldiers will have to retreat into the city. This would put Omashu under siege, which would also mean they would be sitting ducks for trebuchets.
The main reason the Fire Nation is so dominant in warfare are their weapons of war. Fire is the key element of industrialization. Although the Earth Nation can also shape metal weaponry with natural fire and engineering, the Fire Nation can do it at a larger scale with firebenders capable of keeping simplistic engines running with minimal fuel using their chi.
For example, the Earth Nation also has trebuchets, but theirs throw rocks instead of flaming coal. They’re also much weaker, because the trebuchets are made out of hard rocks instead of metal. They lose out on range, power, and durability compared to metal trebuchets, but the advantage is that they can be easily repaired by earthbenders. However, when range and power are enough to win a battle, repairability doesn’t particularly matter.
Azula kicks the eelhound lightly to start them off when everyone is finally on. As soon as they begin, Nuwa hurriedly stops them. There is some confusion among the eelhounds and the passengers over why they stopped so soon, but when they see Nuwa facepalm, get off the eelhound, and call Appa down, they understand.
That’s right, Nuwa underestimated the amount of jostling that occurs while riding an eelhound. Even if she’s strong enough to ignore it, her baby can’t! She could sense her womb’s distress the moment the eelhound started its trot. Now Nuwa sees why Katara and Mai didn’t even come close to the eelhounds.
‘They assumed that I already had a plan to protect my baby from the movements, so they didn’t mention anything, but in reality, I forgot! Dammit, I can be too smart for my own good sometimes.’
Nuwa embarrassingly climbs aboard Appa while the girls have a good giggle. Toph’s pregnancy is far too early for her to have any need to worry about some simple jostling, so she’s fine. There’s only Aang, Katara, Zuko, Mai, and Nuwa on the air bison now.
‘Haahh, I must be stressed over my dumb elemental diagram and dao string fiascos. When was the last time I even did something new as far as perverted fun goes? This won’t do. I’ll lose touch with my inner pervert at this rate!’
A few minutes after they go back into the air, Nuwa asks in a conversational tone, “Katara, can I make out with you?”
Zuko instinctively answers “Yes!” before getting a stink eye from the girls.
Katara actually doesn’t reject immediately, because actually she’s almost constantly horny these days, but she knows that if Nuwa makes out with her, she’ll need to be fucked. Nuwa’s kisses have the kind of taste and passion that can drive anyone wild. “No. Sorry Stella. We have to keep an eye out for bandits below, remember?”
Nuwa exhales exaggeratedly with a depressing, “Mouuu.”
Aang asks, “Hey, don’t I get a say in whether or not you’re allowed to kiss Katara?”
Nuwa and Katara both say together, “Nope.”
Katara continues, “You’re free to kiss Zuko if you want, I won’t stop you.”
Zuko and Aang look at each other like deers in headlights. Then Aang averts his eyes and says, “You know bro, I love you and all.. But the only way I’d kiss you is if I was forced to do it in order to save someone’s life. No homo.”
Zuko nods his head rapidly, then sinks deep into thought before saying, “If you grew boobs and your penis vanished, I might. No homo though.”
Aang laughs sarcastically at how ridiculous that would be and shakes Zuko’s hand sagely, “Good talk. I’m glad we’re in agreement.”
Meanwhile, Nuwa is looking into the distance silently with big plans on her mind. Plans big enough to warrant her needing to kick up [Acting] to prevent her from breaking out into a supervillain laugh track again.
~ ~ ~
Sadboy jumps back into his VR pod and hears the [SIMP System] speak in a voice that emulates Ty Li’s.
*Hello, Sadboy. Will you jump right back into character or would you like to watch some reruns?*
“Show me the reruns already, you know I always get off once to them before I start.”
*I am mandated to remind you of your options.*
Sadboy lives in a futuristic version of Earth that’s surprisingly at peace. The technology is so advanced that everything is automated, giving normal people nothing to do. Now they just goof off on VR games and other multimedia. The [SIMP System] harvests simp energy from these degenerate boys and girls who have no dreams of their own.
This energy goes towards a large number of things, but mainly towards maintaining the environment and keeping the world clean. No one knows who was the original creator of the [SIMP System] or how it got access to every VR pod worldwide instantaneously, but they do know that it means no harm. It even recommends that pod users exercise, not fap so often, and get some mental rest, so they let it do its thing.
Sadboy is annoyed that he had to leave his pod. He wants to stay in the Avatar world! He grew up in a rich household with all sorts of luxuries available, but no one to talk to. His parents spend most of their time in a VR Runescape world. He never understood the appeal of AFK gaming if you’re in a VR world.
He and a few others were randomly selected for a pilot run in something called a “Record”. Apparently, it’s based on a book that has a world with a plot that has already been written, but can be changed depending on whether or not some partycrashers come into the mix. Partycrashers that include him. It seemed a bit shady when he heard about it from the [SIMP System], but he figured he would give it a go. He was bored of getting no-scoped by 9 year olds in the FPS VR game that he always plays.
That’s when the [SIMP System] dropped him and a few others as elite guards in the Fire Nation Military! The world was so real! Bugs didn’t exist! There were restrictions, but everything else overruled it. Firebending felt incredible! He felt like he experienced owning a superpower and not just controlling someone else with a superpower!
It’s also where he met the love of his life, Ty Li’s tits. He finishes his fap to VR reruns that he’s saved of Ty Li stretching in the morning sunrise. ‘Haaaah.. that was fulfilling. It’s time to go back to work.’
Sadboy is grateful to Ty Li’s boobs for always accompanying him whenever he’s upset. He’s the type that gets easily carried away by internet conspiracies like flat earth and infinite gender theory so he gets made fun of a lot. Ty Li was the only one who showed him kindness, and her titties showed him the truth.
The reason he had to get out of the pod was that he had to pick up some old school engineering books because that knowledge wasn’t available online. His family is the richest of the 5 elite guards, so he’s the one who has to buy stuff. They’re currently in Omashu serving as double-agents for Bumi and this guy called the Mechanist. The moment he sees some idea they draw down from their otherworldly knowledge, he gets stars in his eyes and starts tinkering with stuff while drawing blueprints.
The official story is that their squadron was wiped out and they’re prisoners of war, but actually they’re chilling with Bumi and building shit for the resistance. All the elite guards figured out that Nuwa and Ty Li planned to betray the Fire Nation when they saw them talking with the Avatar before they got knocked out.
They didn’t care. They’d do anything to help their heroines.
Elite guard #1 is Shyboy. He rarely talks. But he’s got a deep brotherly streak to him.
Elite guard #2 is Assboy. He only likes ass. Boobs actually turn him off. He’s secretly into Azula’s very muscular ass, but none of the others know.
Elite guard #3 is Dissboy. He shits on everyone ever, but they know that he never means it. Dissboy is always the first to make fun of Sadboy and first to apologize later.
Elite guard #4 is Smartboy. He’s got a small penis, so he compensates with his brain. He’s the kind of person that knows every side character in One Piece, along with the exact numbers of their first chapter and anime appearance.
Sadboy is the fifth guard. He’s deeply infatuated with Ty Li’s tits. He’d do anything to spend more time with them. The main reason they turned traitor here was because they knew the Avatar visited Omashu at one point, so they hoped that Nuwa would come back with the Avatar to visit Omashu.
The reason he’s so excited today is because he overheard from Bumi that Nuwa should be coming to Omashu soon! The problem is that they’re coming to help out in the war effort. That’s when Sadboy realized that he could have helped the resistance a lot with otherworldly knowledge, but he was too busy being depressed. The other guards were too busy cheering him up.
But when they heard that the girls would be coming, they got all fired up and started helping in the manual labor part of the submarine building. They cooperatively used their firebending and walked around without chains. Some Earth Nation engineers were confused at the fully armored Fire Nation soldiers helping them, but then they shrugged and carried on.
King Bumi has that kind of aura that inspires people to carpe diem the fuck out of their lives. It even spreads to his citizens. None of the citizens care when he says he would surrender if the Fire Nation gets too close to siege range. They were happy to fight them and happy to surrender to them when the time came. Smartboy couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
Anyway, the base they are building the submarines on wasn’t quite in Omashu proper, so it wouldn’t be a big deal if the city was lost. Sadboy wants everything to be done before the girls come so that Ty Li would praise him.
He might even get to reunite with the loves of his life! He makes a swift prayer gesture at the thought of being graced with a touch from her boobies, before diving back into his character and going HAM on engineering with his four mates.
(A/N: I’ve been watching too many supervillain soundtracks on Youtube. A bit of exposition for the Elite Guard Squad.)